5 Lessons I Learned After 5 Years Of Being A Full-Time Writer

In 2014 I started journaling.

In 2015 I started freelancing.

In 2016 I got into the Huffington Post.

In 2017 I broke 10,000 blogging followers.

In 2018 I became a six-figure per year blogger.

That’s the first five years of my story in a nutshell.

From horrible writer (you should see my first journal entries) to full-time writer.

What was it like for me in the early days? How did I get into the Huffington Post? Let’s get into it.

2014: Your Main Goal As A Writer Is To Connect With Your Emotions

As I left Orlando in the winter of 2014 after working at Disney World for 8 months, I cried. I didn’t cry walking to the plane, or saying goodbye to my friends, I cried while scribbling in a journal — in front of other human beings.

When my sister sent me three journals before my college program started, I laughed it off.

‘Really? She wants me to journal?’ I thought.

I took her up on it. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, I filled up 100 pages in 8 months. I wrote about falling in love, missing home, what made me angry that day, partying at Disney. I wrote about it all.

I got connected with who I was. I got connected with my emotions. I had 100 pages of practice expressing my emotions in written form. This single skill has likely amounted to 50% of my success as a writer.

Staying true to my emotions.

I think all writers need to journal.

2015: Learn To Write When You Don’t Want To

I remember the first freelance client I got. It was off a craigslist ad — this business wanted me to write letters to potential investors. I wrote three letters and got paid $30.

It wasn’t worth it. It ended up being like 6 hours of work, and truthfully, I didn’t love every second of it.

But I liked the pay. I liked how I didn’t need to suit up, drive to work, work, drive back home, and get a shower. I liked that all I needed to do was log in to my computer to make money.

I continued freelancing. I likely pulled off some 100+ jobs for people over 3 years.

Freelancing taught me to write even when I didn’t want to. Not to mention it gave me a lot of practice. I wrote hundreds of thousands of words over 3 years of freelancing.

I didn’t know it then, but I was strengthening my writing muscles while developing writing grit.

Writing grit is in very short supply these days, and a big key to writing success.

2016: How I Got Into The Huffington Post

I dangled my feet over the most beautiful canyon I’d ever seen. I was 2,000 miles from home, and it was sunset. In an instant, I became overwhelmed with emotion.

Me at Sabino Canyon, Arizona

I was in the middle of a 5-month road trip. I was staying in hostels, I was budgeting, I was driving some guy from Britain across country — helping him get to California. I was having an adventure, basically.

I pitched a publication on a site called Medium my story. I thought that maybe I could start writing about myself for a change.

Weirdly enough, they accepted, and they told me they had a syndication deal with the Huffington Post, so I’d become a writer there, too.

I about jumped through the ceiling of my car. I couldn’t believe it. This was monumental news in my writing career.

Everything changed after that point, and it wouldn’t have been possible if I never believed in my story.

You’re in the middle of a story. You’re the main character. Your problems and struggles are ammunition for the plot.

Too bad so few of us know it.

2017: Give A Darn About Your Readers

When I got back from my road trip, I had so many things I wanted to write about. My mind was bursting at the seams. I decided to try this new website out called Medium.

I wrote there 5 days per week for a year and 365 days later I had over 10,000 followers. One of the biggest keys to my success was caring about my readers. Back then I never let one comment get past me.

I always responded.

In fact, I did more than that. I followed whoever commented and tried to read any articles they might have published. Then I wrote their names down in a google document so I could check in with them regularly.

I’m horrible at remembering things, so I wrote down names back then.

Caring about readers is something I see a lot of up-and-coming writers skimp on. It’s easily one of the biggest contributors to my success.

2018: Think Like A Businessperson To Write Full-Time

In late 2017, I was at the end of my rope. I hadn’t monetized my following at all. I was running out of freelance clients until one day my last big client announced they were shutting down their website.

I was lost. I had no income, a lot of followers, and a writing skill I no longer wanted to use for freelancing purposes.

In my darkest hour, I decided to create an online course. Three weeks of work later, I had 15 people sold on a new course about Medium, and I made my first $2,000 as a course creator.

So many writers I know do not care for online courses — which really floors me.

Everybody wants to write books or blog posts, but few ever want to put the elbow grease into making a course. Few people want to figure out how to turn this into a business.

If you want to go full-time, you must bring a business mindset to this. You must learn some new skills. Writing alone isn’t going to do it for you.

You need to learn about email marketing, sales funnels, social media marketing, website coding, search engine optimization — the list goes on and on.

The fact remains. If you want to be a full-time writer for any extended period of time, it’s best to think like a businessperson.

To be honest, writing can get old after a while. Building a business that’s bigger than your writing is a safety net against creative burnout. You don’t have to feel this burning NEED to keep writing if you’ve built a nice business around you.

I’d urge everyone reading to consider doing this for themselves.

Those are five lessons I learned in my first five years as a full-time blogger.

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